Today my mind is on my vintage clothing sales. I ran down to the shop this morning to swap out some inventory. I tend to pack my clothing racks a bit too much! What I’m doing now is making sure I only have a certain amount of hangers and then swapping out new inventory to the amount of empty hangers or items I need to bring home and put online. 

  I’ve set up a clearance eBay account that I use as a “last chance“ inventory dump. I list stuff at the price I paid for it plus shipping and a small handling fee to cover materials and fees that I have to pay to eBay. It’s an attempt not to take a loss on an item. Most of the time stuff does sell but after it’s been up a month, if there’s still no interest, it gets donated.

  The clothing inventory I have in the shop is not online so when I do swap things out, I list them on Etsy first. I love the shop dressing room lighting so I usually snap a few pictures there and it ends up being less editing for me later. After a month on Etsy, it goes to eBay.

  I find that creating a cycle helps me keep my inventory fresh no matter the platform or place that it is. It also takes the guesswork, about where something will sell, out of it because there are multiple opportunities lined up. I think I need to figure out where Mercari or Depop could fit into all this. If you have experience with vintage clothing on either one of these sites, I would really love to hear about it. I dipped my toe in Depop and didn’t have much success but it was never my focus so that probably has something to do with it.

 When you are self-employed, it can be very easy to have the day slip by and not have accomplished much besides surfing social media, catching up on TV shows and eating snacks uninterruptedly, lol. I have to guard myself in this regard as I am fairly distractible. 

  I have to structure my day in a way that works with my natural algorithm. I’m not a morning person but I have to take the kids to school so I found that running errands while I’m already up and out works best. My brain is more awake and focused in the afternoon so that’s generally when I list. Dinner time is family time when we all gather at the dining room table so that is a consistent part of the day- and I’m the only chef. After that I go to the gym and get my self-care in. This the a general structure of my week days. 

  As far as sourcing goes, I do try and structure that around where I have to be anyway. This morning I am having brunch with my best girlfriends in a quaint local town nearby. I’m going to take advantage of being there to walk around and see if any stores there would be a good fit for me and are accepting vendors. I also see these shops as an opportunities  to pick up well priced inventory. 

  Because of my plans, I switched things up and did research and posted several high value listings on eBay. Flexibility and working with what the day brings me is also a big part of maximizing my time. There’s not one set structure that works for everyone, but I think a big part of not getting burned out is finding ways that both agree with your nature and pull the best results out of your efforts. This is working for me now, but I will have to switch it up in the summer- and that’s fine! We should always give ourselves the freedom to go with whatever is working for ourselves in the moment, but be ready to change when it’s not.